In the following review of The Life of Pi, Whitlock contends that the main body of the novel is exhilarating, gripping, and wonderful, but observes that the narrative framework of the story is superfluous.

It's impossible to read Yann Martel's audacious, exhilarating, frustrating second novel without wondering what the hell happened. The premise of Life of Pi vibrates with promise. A family living in a small corner of India decides to resettle in Winnipeg in 1977. The family ran a small municipal zoo, and they opt to travel to North America on the same ship that carries a number of the animals that are relocating to zoos in the U.S. The ship sinks in the middle of the Pacific, and the lone human survivor, young Piscine “Pi” Molitor Patel, finds himself...